Syllabus

Course Meeting Times

Lectures: 2 sessions / week, 1 hour / session

Labwork: Self-scheduled sessions, 6 to 8 hours / week expected

Course Overview

20.309 is an intensive laboratory that teaches the principles and practices of making quantitative measurements using advanced instrumentation. The field of Biological Engineering employs a broad set of measurement techniques and instruments, and students studying the discipline must develop a strong understanding to use them effectively. Students must know not only how to use these tools, but should learn their underlying physical principles, and how they are designed. The approach of 20.309 is highly hands-on and we believe students learn best by building and doing the experiments in the lab. Lectures provide the broader underpinnings in measurement principles that support the experiments. Topics include light and fluorescence microscopies, electro-mechanical probes, application of statistics, probability, and noise analysis to experimental data, and Fourier techniques.

The course content is organized into modules, each focused on a major piece of apparatus or a group of experiments. In Fall 2006, the four main modules are:

Electronics for measuring DNA melting curves

Micromechanics and the atomic force microscope

Fluorescence optical microscopy

Optical trapping

We emphasize design and building – several of the setups, such as the DNA melting experiment and optical microscope are build by students from scratch. Going beyond simply using the instruments provides students with the confidence to "turn the knobs" on these systems to make the types of measurements that modern research requires.

Prerequisites

Assignments

Homework

Students must complete several homework assignments. These will include questions related to lecture material, lab modules, and selected journal articles.

Oral Presentations

Five class sessions are devoted to student oral presentations. Each student will each give a 12 minute presentation on a lab module or a journal article of their choice.

Quizzes

Quizzes will be given during lab sessions, and are intended to help you prepare for the experiment you are performing. The questions will be straightforward and should take about 5 minutes before you begin working on each lab.

Labs

20.309 is an "open format" lab. Generally, students should aim to sign up for 6-8 hours of lab time per week, which should be enough to accomplish the week's goals. Students are responsible for scheduling their own hours. Instructors and TAs will always be present in the lab, but will only be available to answer questions and help you work on your experiments during scheduled hours. (However, if an emergency arises or an injury occurs, get an instructor's attention immediately).

Four written reports on the labs will comprise 50% of the course grade. You will be working in pairs throughout the semester, but you will be submitting individual lab reports.

Lab attendance is mandatory and there are no make-up labs. A family crisis or severe illness requiring attention from the infirmary and prohibiting you from all your coursework are acceptable reasons for missing lab. In these exceptional circumstances, every effort will be made to accommodate you.

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